George Sand, L'14

REPUTATION, TOP-NOTCH FACULTY DRAW KANSAS CITY NATIVE TO LAWRENCE

"The faculty are probably my favorite part of school. Their doors are always open."

Kansas City native George Sand was looking for a nationally recognized school and top-notch faculty. He found both at KU.

A business undergraduate, Sand brought his love of numbers to KU, where he earned a joint degree in economics and law. Sand carved a niche for himself in the economic realm, landing a position with the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

“The price for what you’re getting is good,” Sand said. “We are placing people in jobs, competing with extremely expensive schools. People are nice here. You get the college town feel, but you have the city 45 minutes away, so you get the best of both worlds.”

As a law student, Sand served as editor-in-chief of the Kansas Law Review, an elected position that involves reviewing submissions, selecting articles and coordinating the publishing and distribution of five issues per year. Sand credits the Law Review with teaching him to articulate technical subjects clearly, pay attention to detail and keep a tight schedule.

“It’s good experience for students,” Sand said. “You’re exposed to new areas of law and get to network with experts. You’re meticulously looking at the law, making sure T’s are crossed and I’s dotted. You’re reading thousands of pages but still have to notice one missing comma.”

“This is the one way students can influence law,” Sand said. “We’re the ones choosing the pieces that people will see when they search in Westlaw. In most fields it’s professionals who choose what is published, but we have some power in shaping the law.”

In addition to editing others’ work, Sand coauthored a paper with Professor Mike Kautsch exploring Google’s evolution and the possibility that the company could become a regulated utility as it grows to include citywide Wi-Fi networks. “That’s when the government gets involved, so we talked about the ramifications surrounding that,” Sand said. The pair’s paper was published in the ABA Journal.

Thanks to his long hours in the Law Review office, Sand enjoyed many chats with his professors and developed close relationships with his mentors.

“My favorite part of school was the professors. Their doors are always open,” Sand said. As Law Review editor, he benefited from that open-door policy. “If we publish an article on administrative law, not having any foundation in administrative law, it’s hard to know if a paper is good or not. I would send it to Professor Levy and he would give me honest critiques. Anytime I had questions about an article I would send it to faculty. They would review it and give me feedback.”

Beyond the academic support, Sand knows his faculty connections will serve him well throughout his career.

“A lot of the jobs students have gotten have been from talking to professors, from professors connecting with practitioners,” Sand said. “Our faculty are engrained in the professional world.”